“I am his secretary, and was largely instrumental in securing his nomination for governor,” was the simple reply. There was a pause--how filled, I would have given half my expected salary to know. Then I heard her ask him the very question she had asked me. “Do you think that in the event of your not succeeding in forcing an apology from the man who inserted that objectionable paragraph against myself--that--that such hints of something being wrong with me will in any way affect Mr. Packard’s chances--lose him votes, I mean? Will the husband suffer because of some imagined lack in his wife?” “One can not say.” Thus appealed to, the man seemed to weigh his words carefully, out of consideration for her, I thought. “No real admirer of the mayor’s would go over to the enemy from any such cause as that. Only the doubtful--the half-hearted--those who are ready to grasp at any excuse for voting with the other party, would allow a consideration of the mayor’s domestic relations to interfere with their confidence in him as a public officer.” “But these--” How I wish I could have seen her face! “These half-hearted voters, their easily stifled convictions are what make majorities,” she stammered. Mr. Steele may have bowed; he probably did, for she went on confidently and with a certain authority not observable in the tone of her previous remarks. “You are right. The paragraph reflecting on me must be traced to its source. The lie must be met and grappled with. I was not well last week and showed it, but I am perfectly well to-day and am resolved to show that, too. No skeleton hangs in the Packard closet. I am a happy wife and a happy mother. Let them come here and see. This morning I shall issue invitations for a dinner to be given the first night you can assure me Mr. Packard will be at home. Do you know of any such night?” “On Friday week he has no speech to make.” Mrs. Packard seemed to consider. Finally she said: “When you see him, tell him to leave that evening free. And, Mr. Steele, if you will be so good, give me the names of some of those halfhearted ones--critical people who have to see in order to believe. I shall have them at my table--I shall let them see that the shadow which enveloped me was ephemeral; that a woman can rise above all weakness in the support of a husband she loves and honors as I do Mr. Packard.” She must have looked majestic. Her voice thrilling with anticipated triumph rang through the room, awaking echoes which surely must have touched the heart of this man if, as I had sometimes thought, he cherished an unwelcome admiration for her. But when he answered, there was no hint in his finely modulated tones of any chord having been touched in his breast, save the legitimate one of respectful appreciation of a woman who fulfilled the expectation of one alive to what is admirable in her sex.